The boys over at Western Digital have taken a 2.5 inch 300 GB spinning at 10,000 rpm and enclosed it in a 3.5 inch form factor case, which, would you believe, cools this little sucker down? Yep, that’s right, you can get your mits on a 300 GB VelociRaptor unit (WD3000HLFS) or a 150 GB version (WD1500HLFS) both of which incorporate a backplane structure which acts as a heatsink for those platters spinning around at 10,000 rpm. Still not impressed? May be you will be after a few more facts and figures

* 300 or 150 GB capacity
* 10,000 rpm
* talks nicely with Macs and PCs
* 3 GBps SATA interface
* 16 MB cache

And, finally, the price tags are US$320 for the 300 GB version with its smaller 150 GB brother weighing in at US$230. Whilst the uses of these puppies are pretty specific, anyone looking for some more performance out of their HDDs may not need to look any further as these VelociRaptors offer twice the capacity and are a third faster than their Raptor predecessors and are also cooler.

Featured tags: 2.5 inch HDD backplane hdd velociraptor western digital

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Aimed firmly at the DVR market, Hitachi has launched a couple of new HDDs, namely the CinemaStar 7K1000.B and the CinemaStar 5K320. The 7K1000.B is similar to its DeskStar namesake, yet this unit has been optimised for continuous operation by tweaking its drive mechanics to use three idle modes. The 3.5 inch SATA drive has also been toughened up to withstand the fanless environment found inside DVRs. It spins at 7,200 rpm and is available in a range of capacities from 160 GB thru to a 1 TB big boy!

The 320 GB capacity CinemaStar 5K320 also boasts the toughened touch and optimisation found on the 7K1000.B. However it has also has had CoolSpin technology added to its repertoire to make it one of the most energy efficient and quiet 3.5 inch drives out there - well, according to Hitachi anyway.

Apart from the refinements required for DVR usage, these units are not much different from their DeskStar siblings, so for the average Joe they may get a ‘So what?’ comment, but for the improvement of DVR specs we give them a big thumbs up.

No prices as yet with the 7K1000.B out in August and the 5K320 on show from September.

Featured tags: CinemaStar 5K320 cinemastar 7K1000.B DVR hdd hitachi

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The boys at Fabrik have come up with an eco-friendly external hard drive unit with their latest offering the SimpleTech [re]drive. The unit has a bamboo and re-cycled aluminium case and an Energy Star power adapter. For the more usual specs on an external hard drive, read on

* 500 GB storage
* Turbo USB 2.0 interface (25% faster than USB 2.0)
* 2 GB free online storage
* Unlimited tech support
* Plays nicely with PCs and Macs
* Plug n Play

The price tag rocks in at US$160 so not a bad package and eco-friendly too. I think that Fabrik have got a hot little winner on their hands here.

Source: Fabrik

Featured tags: external hdd Fabrik hdd simpletech [re]drive

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Hitachi have just announced their latest 1TB hard disk drive, the Deskstar 7K1000.B, claiming it’s the first in a new generation of terabyte hard disk drives. So what’s so new about this second generation of drives, well according to Hitachi’s press release their latest offering

provides an exceptional blend of power efficiency and performance, making it an ideal solution for power-friendly consumer and commercial PCs

So basically they’ve managed to reduce the drive’s power usage whilst maintaining read/write speeds. Here are a few more specs for you to consume.

* spin speed of 7,200 rpm
* 1TB storage
* 3 Gb/s SATA interface
* 32 MB buffer
* 1.2 million hours Mean Time Between Failure
* Rotational Vibration Safeguard

Hitachi claim that this new drive, whilst in idle mode will provide a power saving of up to 43% on first gen drives through its three disk design. Each disk can 375 GB of zeroes and ones. Pretty impressive, eh? Good timing too, considering all the hoopla over the ‘power savings’ of SSDs at the moment.

Source: PC Launches

Featured tags: 3.5 inch HDD hdd hitachi

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Whilst Hitachi’s latest CinemaStar HDD offerings, the 2.5 inch C5K320 and 3.5 inch 5K500, are primarily for use in DVRs they can of course be slotted into existing PCs and laptops. According to Hitachi the 5K500’s main feature is

Cool, quiet, power-efficient storage for digital video applications

which the 5K500 achieves using Hitachi’s CoolSpin motor design.

CoolSpin technology is a low-power motor design that requires less power to spin up the drive than most 3.5-inch hard drives

As well as CoolSpin the 5K500 offers the following bells and whistles

* 3.5 inch form factor
* 500 GB storage
* SATA 3Gbps interface
* 3.2 W idle power
* 4 data heads and 2 data disks
* 8 MB buffer
* 929 Mbps media transfer rate
* 101.6 x 147 x 26.1 mm

As for the C5K320, which comes in a handy range of capacities from 120 GB up to 320 GB, it sports Hitachi’s SmoothStream technology

supports the ATA-7 streaming command set, and SCT provides time-limited error recovery and thermal monitoring capabilities. CinemaStar C5K320 is offered with silent-seek acoustics for ultra-quiet operation.

Here are the rest of the specs

* 1.5 Gbps SATA interface
* 120, 160, 250, 320 GB capacities
* 8 MB data buffer
* 5,400 rpm
* 729 Mbps media transfer rate
* 70 x 100 x 9.5 mm
* 102 g

Unfortunately no news on the price tag, but at least it’s good to see HDD manufacturers trying to enhance our media storage options. These suckers will be available in June.

Source: Hitachi

Featured tags: 2.5 inch HDD 3.5 inch HDD DVR hdd hitachi

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Want to stretch your 17 inch MacBook to the storage max? If so, MCE have the answer for you with their 1TB Internal Hard Drive Solution. This package consists of the OptiBay SATA 500GB Optical Bay Hard Drive and the MobileStor 500GB Internal SATA Hard Drive which respectively replace the internal SuperDrive and internal hard drive of your MacBook Pro. Conveniently there’s also two USB 2.0 external enclosures for the displaced hardware. Here’s a run down on the bits and pieces on offer

* 500GB standard internal hard drive, 500GB OptiBay hard drive
* Both spin at 5,400 rpm
* single volume, partitioned, or RAID array set up options
* USB 2.0 external enclosure for the original internal hard drive
* USB 2.0 external enclosure for the extracted SuperDrive compatible with iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, iTunes, iPhoto, and Finder Burning

The downside on this handy little MCE offer is the price tag rocking in at US$800. MCE also offer installation if you can send your MacBook to them starting at US$100. So this is only really an option if you are desperate for a 1TB’s worth of zeroes and ones on your MacBook.

Source: MCE

Featured tags: hdd laptop macbook mce

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Worried about some axe-wielding maniac dealing to your external hard drive? You may find some comfort in LaCie’s latest offering the Rugged Hard Disk. It offers a scratch-protected (note not resistant) aluminium case along with a shock-resistant rubber bumper in a delicious shade of orange. Aside from the usual specs, the maximum drop height is 90cm and that’s in non-operating mode - apparently dropping is not recommended in operating mode. The unit comes in two flavours, a USB 2.0 connection version and a USB 2.0, FireWire 400/800 version. Apparently the encased HDD is Hitachi’s 2.5-inch Travelstar 5K500 with the following specs

* 5,400 rpm
* 480 Mbps transfer rate
* 90 x 25 x 145 mm
* 250 g
* plays nicely with Windows 2000 upwards and Mac OS 9.x upwards

Pricing depends on the capacity required and connectivity option chosen. For USB 2.0 only, 80 GB starts at US$90, going up to US$340 for the 500 GB version, whilst the USB/FireWire model starts out at US$130 for 120 GB increasing up to US$400 for 500 GB’s worth of zeros and ones.

Source: LaCie Rugged Hard Disk

Featured tags: hdd lacie rugged hard disk

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